.AAC (.m4a) to MP3: Can Jetaudio do this?

[Macn00b]

I'm just wondering about if the version of jetaudio which is bundled with the D2 is able to convert .AAC to MP3? Do you have any recommendations in what software i should use? I am a former Macintosh user, and i don't want to rename all of my .m4a files to .aac, just to make them playable on the D2 (does this still work?). If i rename all of my files to .aac, will the D2 show the ID3 tags? My D2 is a D2+'ed player..

I appreciate all answears i can get!
Thank you.

[Zomby Woof]

Just download this free software:

http://www.*********************.com/screenshot.php

[dj_si]

Originally Posted by Macn00b

...i don't want to rename all of my .m4a files to .aac, just to make them playable on the D2 (does this still work?).

On a Mac you could easily write a shell script to rename all your m4a files, but I'm pretty sure that the D2 (and D2+) do not support either m4a or aac, so renaming your files would not be of any benefit.

Converting from m4a to mp3 would make them playable on a D2/D2+, but I suspect preservation of the ID3 tag info will depend on the conversion software that you use. And be warned that transcoding from one lossy compression format to another will result in a loss of audio quality, though this will probably be less noticeable if your m4a files are at a high bitrate.

[Flamin_Spirit]

if you have the original CD's I would suggest re-ripping them to a lossless audio format (FLAC) then converting that to Quality 7 or so .OGG vorbis, Vorbis has a lower filesize than mp3 at the same bitrate/quality. If you don't want to dedicate lots of Hard drive space on your computer to FLAC, just re-rip the files as whatever you want (again i'd recommend vorbis)

converting from one lossy format to another can really lower your audio quality, so if possible, re-rip the Cd's if you bought the music online or do not have the Cd's anymore, you can try converting them, sometimes the audio quality loss isn't that noticeable to some people, mainly those who do not care as much about the quality and just want to listen to their music.

[dj_si]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Spirit

if you have the original CD's I would suggest re-ripping them to a lossless audio format (FLAC) then converting that to Quality 7 or so .OGG vorbis

Yep, I'll second that. In fact, that's exactly how I've been putting music on my D2+ since I bought it a few weeks ago! I use Exact Audio Copy to rip to FLAC, then convert to OGG at "q7", and copy the OGG to my D2+.

Macn00b, if you don't mind spending time re-ripping (assuming you have the original CDs), then this would give you better audio quality than transcoding from M4A/AAC to MP3. However, transcoding will probably be a lot quicker.

Actually, if you have any of the original CDs then you might want to do a comparison first - transcode (convert) some songs from M4A/AAC to MP3. Then listen to both the original M4A/AAC and the MP3, and see if you can hear whether the MP3 version sounds worse. (Any difference will be more noticeable if the bitrate of the M4A/AAC version was low.)

If you can't hear any difference (or you're not bothered by the drop in quality), then you may as well just stick to transcoding from M4A/AAC to MP3. But if you don't like the drop in quality, you'll need to re-rip those CDs as described above.

(Btw, since OGG gives superior quality to MP3 at the same bitrate, you could probably drop to encoding at "q6" or even "q5" - you probably wouldn't hear much difference in comparison with "q7", but you would save space as the files would be smaller.)